Hello, 2016!

It’s 2016 !!! Hooray !!! I’m so happy and thankful I got to reach a new year together with my friends, and my family, and my blog !!!

Whew, 2015 was something, yeah? It was a very successful year for me, in my opinion. I got to learn a new craft that I absolutely love! That craft gave me the chance to be featured in one of our local TV shows, and that gave me the opportunity to spread awareness about calligraphy in Davao, which led to the creation of the Davao Pen Society! (Shout out to my pen lovers!!! <3) 2015 also gave me the opportunity to travel to Korea, a country I’ve always wanted to visit. Last year was also a year of new friendships, which I’m very thankful for, but it was also a year that resulted in a lot of rocky friendships, and some ended (as far as I know). All in all, though, it was a very good year and now it’s time to move on to a new one!

This year has barely begun but I hit the ground running! I’m going to be listing a few reasons why my 2016 is already a very special one from the get-go. So please enjoy the photos after the skip!

The first thing that made my 2016 special was the arrival of my #HobonichiTecho! It was love at first sight, touch, and write!

For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a planner from Japan. What makes it special is the paper that makes up the planner, the Tomoe River! This paper is well known for its smooth texture that’s perfect for fountain pens (which I got addicted to last year) and other writing mediums! Despite how thin and delicate the paper seems, it is incredibly durable!

People actually use water color on the pages and the paper stays completely intact (very minimal wrinkling), and it barely shows on the opposite page!

To those of you who use planners or water color or calligraphy, you’ll know why I’ve fallen in love with my Hobo!

The second reason for a very special January is the marriage of two friends, Jaron and Sarah.

The #CruzSengTogether couple tied the knot on January 09 and they look so perfect together! Starting the year off with such a happy event is surely a good thing! Also, it didn’t hurt that I got to spend time with two of my close friends during the reception!

Shout out to these sexy ladies! Haha!

Last year, like I mentioned above, I was very happy to have formed new bonds with people who shared the same passion that I had with calligraphy. This year, I started forming new bonds with people who shared the same love for table top games!

January 10 was the official birth date of the Davao Table Top Gamers! We held our very first meet up at Cafe 52 and we played games for 8 hours straight! Maybe even more for the early birds!

I didn’t expect this many people to be present! It was such a happy night of gaming and real, human interaction! No phones or tabs or laptops (well, except when we needed to keep score or remember what our hit points were…)

One of my hopes for 2016 is that this community will grow and that it will stay alive! There’s so much potential!

So, that’s my January so far! There’re still a lot more planned for the second half of this month so that’s got me excited!

I hope everyone’s year started out awesome as well! Stay with me as I try to post more often on here!